Prospecting is confusing - ore names vs source 'rock' names

[CzBuCHi]

I used prospecting pick and got "Pentlandite: medium amounts" .... then i dig some rock and found nickel 3 blocks away from my prospecting block .... until that point i have no idea what Pentlandite is ....

so ... I think it would be better if prospecting pick shown something like "Pentlandite (nickel): medium amounts" ....

 

[Rainbow Fresh]

Could be a difficulty setting. Cause logically it makes full sense that if you prospect rocks, you would find traces of specific rocks that contain the materials to make metal XYZ. It also has a somewhat nice aspect of learning to it - all the information is available in the handbook to find out what metal has what name while prospecting - but I can just as easily see how some people wouldn't be into this extra layer of work. Hence a setting people can switch if they'd rather have normal names or easily identifiable names.

[qualicabyss]

Why would that be a difficulty setting?!?
A normal setting, yes, but not a difficulty setting!!!

[Rainbow Fresh]

On 10/4/2026 at 5:39 AM, qualicabyss said:

Why would that be a difficulty setting?!?
A normal setting, yes, but not a difficulty setting!!!

All the world settings are essentially difficulty settings as they directly affect gameplay. Even world generation "landform" settings could be considered that because adding more water than usual could make the game harder as boat travel becomes required and boats are very expensive to make.

Normal settings would be akin to the graphics and audio settings.

Granted, the display of names being in the same category as e.g. subtitles would be and something that globally affects the game as a whole could be seen as a potential general setting but the original gripe was that it is "hard" to have prospecting results that don't tell you anything unless you figure out what the rock type names equate to (which you can find out in-game through studying the handbook). This makes it a "difficulty" (albeit one that makes sense) and changing would equate to a difficulty setting.

Edited October 5 by Rainbow Fresh

[Martin Horváth]

12 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

All the world settings are essentially difficulty settings as they directly affect gameplay. Even world generation "landform" settings could be considered that because adding more water than usual could make the game harder as boat travel becomes required and boats are very expensive to make.

Rafts are not though, and ocean crossing with a boat/raft covers more distance than simply walking or either running as surface isn't flat unlike the ocean where you only have to go forward without any obstruction. not to mention it literally is the best way to travel since it doesn't cost satiety and you are defended from mobs... imo sailing is great if you need for ex. a specific rock strata, it covers a rock layer waaay faster than going on foot around it. A mountain also gives way more readily accesible land as opposed to like the biomes where it's really fucking hard and annoying to even get through 200-300 blocks. not to mention mountains. imo having oceans near your base or spawn is a pro not a con... except if you start like on a small ass island without any resources. but then again, chop down like 2 trees and get vines from it or just cattails to rope and build a raft and an oar.

Edited October 5 by Martin Horváth

[Vratislav]

On 9/28/2026 at 9:37 AM, Rainbow Fresh said:

all the information is available in the handbook to find out what metal has what name while prospecting - but I can just as easily see how some people wouldn't be into this extra layer of work

Well, I feel that learning curve in VS fits better to the actual situation, hiding metals behind cryptic ore names is part of fun. (And even bigger fun if you install some of geology expanding mods). I do not want to be too harsh, but we may be lucky that mere presence of high-tier ores shows in the low-tier prospecting results at all.  We could also be in a situation, where iron is shown with at least bronze pickaxe, and for nickel detection, a steel propick would be required... On the other side, it would remove part of difficulties with lerarnig the names, as until the late game, the player would see only about seven ores, including three iron variants... 

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Vratislav said:

Well, I feel that learning curve in VS fits better to the actual situation, hiding metals behind cryptic ore names is part of fun.

This is my general thoughts as well, in addition to the fact that while some ores might be the same general thing, it's decidedly not quite the same thing. For example, limonite, hematite, and magnetite are all varieties of iron, but they have different properties that distinguish them from each other. Those properties could also be more fleshed out in the future depending on the ore, especially when it comes to iron since as I understand it, magnetite is already magnetized and hematite is not, while limonite seems to only be weakly magnetic in its natural state.

Having some sort of toggle in the accessibility options isn't the worst idea either, though I don't think it's particularly necessary. It seems better-suited to a mod.

[Mac Mcleod]

Having two names for the same thing with no cross reference makes no sense to me.   It's just confusing.

Now- does the handbook say you get nickle from Pentlandite?   If so- why not just say it on screen as suggested above .. Pentlandite (Nickle).   Even more so if the handbook says that Pentlandite becomes Nickle.   


 

[Vratislav]

10 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Those properties could also be more fleshed out in the future depending on the ore

It would be interesting to have specific processes for particular ores, like different ways of impurities removal or if some kinds of steel was possible to be made only from particular ore. (Maybe too much for base game, but, e.g. Interesting mining mod may be expanded this way.)

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Vratislav said:

It would be interesting to have specific processes for particular ores, like different ways of impurities removal or if some kinds of steel was possible to be made only from particular ore. (Maybe too much for base game, but, e.g. Interesting mining mod may be expanded this way.)

It's not as far-fetched as you might think. In the last interview I watched, Tyron expressed a wish for another tier of material above steel, such as a more refined type of steel. So it's entirely possible. Though I think if it's going to be limited to a particular type of ore, it's going to be one that's fairly easy to find, and not one that you only see once in a blue moon.

[MKMoose]

On 10/7/2026 at 10:44 AM, Vratislav said:

It would be interesting to have specific processes for particular ores, like different ways of impurities removal or if some kinds of steel was possible to be made only from particular ore. (Maybe too much for base game, but, e.g. Interesting mining mod may be expanded this way.)

A different kind of steel from a particular ore might be odd, although Tyron has said that specialized types of steel may be on the table for the future. Though it's currently unimplemented, there is barebones stainless steel in game files, which would be made using chromite - I think it's way too modern (start of the 19th century), and actually the current (simplified) shear steel is even arguably too modern (apparently end of the 16th century at the earliest), but we'll see. There's a lot of stuff between crude wrought iron and shear steel which could be added - crucible steel, cast iron and wrought iron from pig iron most notably.

As far as more involved processes go, ores could primarily see crushing, sorting, washing and roasting among other things, depending on the specific ore. The general purpose of this is to concentrate the ore and remove impurities, which then improves the efficiency of smelting and potentially the quality of the final product. For many ores these could be entirely optional, but there's a few ores for which more complex procesing could be justifiably made necessary if it's not too prohibitive in gameplay - sulfides (e.g. galena, sphalerite, pentlandite) and carbonates (e.g. malachite) most notably. Zinc in particular is also interesting, because in real metallurgy it is quite tricky to manage due to its low boiling point (~900 °C) which means that conventional smelting can cause it to boil out of the alloy.

Here's what I find almost amusing, because it seems like it's quite consistently neglected as a possible benefit: more advanced ore processing can effectively make prospecting easier, since when the player has to spend more time on processing, then it's reasonable to make the ore more accessible to balance things out. Multi-step processes can generally be useful in that they tend to feel relatively complex and satisfying even if the individual steps are actually very simple.

More broadly, early chemistry or alchemy, and under that umbrella metallurgy, dyes and pigments, soap, leather and textiles, and a whole bunch of other stuff, are also very interesting in terms of the new mechanics which could be introduced through them.